“So I can tell you what a motherfucking piece of shit you are for not telling me! For shutting me out. For thinking that you could handle this on your own.”

*****

“Okay,” Justin heard Brian’s nearly inaudible whisper in the darkness, his own head rising and falling slightly with the movement of his lover’s chest. “I’ll do it.”

The younger man lifted his head and kissed Brian’s chest first, then his lips.

“You deserve to be happy,” Justin said as he brushed a stray lock of hair from Brian’s forehead. “I want you to be happy.”

He pulled his arm tighter around Brian’s body and settled his head back down on the older man’s chest, feeling the faint thump of his partner’s heartbeat under the skin and bone. The sound of life flowing through Brian’s body reminded Justin how lucky he was that the only thing he’d come home to was a drunk Brian, and not a dead one. With the mental state Brian seemed to be in at the moment, Justin was afraid that might not have been too far of a reach, even if Brian would have denied it. Justin remembered how desperate he had felt when he’d realized his hand was never going to be the same again, and he’d never be able to draw as easily as he once had. He also remembered the story of Lindsay’s artist friend Adrienne, and how she said she would roll herself off a cliff if she couldn’t paint, so she had to find a way to make it work. You need a release when you’re dealing with something this big, this life-changing. And he knew Brian didn’t have one. He was incredibly grateful that Brian hadn’t been that desperate today. And he prayed that he never would be.

The last time Justin had seen Brian that drunk was when he was standing at the top of the stairs in Michael and Ben’s house, watching Brian and Michael shout at each other in the space between the kitchen and the living room. He’d never seen them fight like that before. He’d never seen Brian that wasted before, either. And it was all because of him.

He remembered wincing as he heard each sentence of the exchange -- the two best friends spewing venom at each other like lifelong enemies instead of two men who, with their history together, might as well have been brothers. Justin hated that they were ruining their friendship over him. He was thankful that they’d eventually found a common ground and forgiven each other, although he wished that it hadn’t taken a bomb and Michael nearly dying for them to find it.

The bombing at Babylon also led to another reconciliation -- this one for him and Brian. Brian finally saying the three little words Justin had waited so long and wanted so desperately to hear, as they stood on the street in the middle of the melee, their faces smudged with soot. Even though the bombing was a horrible tragedy, it was an event that had changed the course of their lives forever. And Justin had to wonder, where would they all be if it hadn’t happened? Where would he and Brian have ended up?

Now, a different event had changed the course of Brian’s life once again, and Justin’s life in turn. Where would they be if it hadn’t been for Brian losing control of the Corvette on a rainy Wednesday last June? Would they still be apart, with hardly any contact except their weekly phone call to catch up and talk about nothing? Would they have reconnected the way they had over the Christmas holiday? Or would Justin have come for his visit and then headed back home to New York, leaving Brian to lead his separate life in Pittsburgh? Would they have lost touch, eventually? Moved on?

Where would Brian be if the accident hadn’t happened? And what was to become of him now? That was the million dollar question. And neither he nor Brian had the answer at this point.

Over the course of the month of March, the Brian who had seemed relatively well-adjusted -- at least, as much as could be expected -- from December to February had morphed into someone who definitely was not coping well. It had become painfully clear to Justin in the last few weeks that Brian apparently hadn’t really dealt with any of this at all. He saw it every time that his lover would suddenly go silent in the middle of a conversation and leave the room, or when he would emerge from a very long shower with swollen, red eyes that Justin would pretend he hadn’t noticed. Brian had just been pushing it all aside, trying not think about it, and letting it smolder until it exploded.

Justin guessed the fuse had been lit earlier in the day, and it burned slowly while Brian drank, for however long he’d been doing that until Justin came home from work and found him very drunk, lying on the sofa. Whatever had happened, it must have been bad. So Justin tried to ask about it. And that’s when the explosion happened. The culmination of nine months of anger and frustration and sadness and fear -- and failing to deal with those emotions -- detonated in the middle of their living room, exactly as Justin had feared might eventually happen. Really, the fuse had been lit months ago, and it was no small wonder that it hadn’t ignited before now.

Brian, who apparently didn’t want to talk about what had happened that day or any other day, but instead wanted to leave the room and end the discussion -- again -- ended up falling while trying to get back into his wheelchair. Justin had anticipated an ill-mannered or bitter reaction to that from Brian because he was probably embarrassed -- that would have been typical Brian. Using an emotion that allowed him to feel in control to conceal one that made him feel vulnerable. But what happened was exactly the opposite.

Justin had not been expecting the tears. Not at all. Justin’s first thought was that Brian had hurt himself -- he’d landed hard and that floor was very unforgiving. But then came the pounding and the fury and the sarcasm and the strange laughter straight through the tears, and Justin’s next thought was, oh my god, he’s having a breakdown. Justin would never forget the fear he saw in Brian’s eyes in that moment. Pure, unadulterated fear that Brian hadn’t been able to bury underneath aloofness or cynicism or mask as anger. And Justin didn’t know what to do.

He wanted to fall to his knees next to his lover -- his partner -- and hold him close, comfort him, but he was afraid Brian would push him away and shut down completely. So he decided to take an assertive, no-nonsense approach instead, to see if he could play off the smartass remarks Brian was making to bring him back into reality, and it seemed to work at first. The laughter and the crying stopped, at least. The derision he could deal with; that was just Brian. He was used to that. Then Brian asked to be alone for a while, and his voice broke when he said it. That sound made Justin’s heart hurt.

Justin really didn’t want to leave him alone, but felt like he didn’t have a choice. He needed to respect Brian’s autonomy and not treat him like a child who didn’t know what he wanted or couldn’t be trusted. And Justin was the only one who could easily leave the room at that moment. So he left and went into the work space they both shared, knowing full well that he’d only be sitting in there, doing nothing, trying to give Brian some space, all the while wishing he could go back out there and curl up next to him and hold him -- assure him that he was going to be okay, and they’d deal with it together.

So Justin sat in the chair under the window in the office for what felt like an eternity, his ears tuned to what was going on in the living room. He didn’t hear much of anything; Brian was quiet. Probably just thinking. When he felt like he’d given Brian sufficient time to gather his thoughts and calm down, he went back into the living room.

Brian did ask him for help getting back up off the floor, as Justin suspected he might need but was too proud or ashamed to ask. But Justin still couldn’t get Brian to say much about what had just happened, or why. Only that he’d had a for-shit day that kept reminding him of how different his life was now, and that he felt like he was losing his mind. That he’d felt that way for a while. When he said that, Justin wanted to hug Brian and never let him go. He also wanted to punch something. Hard. In that moment, Justin had to put a lot of effort into not feeling angry at Brian for not fucking telling him how he felt. For not giving Justin a chance to help him. He felt like he was being shut out again, even though they’d been living together for nearly a month now. But Justin knew that adding his own anger to the pile wasn’t going to help. He couldn’t be mad at Brian. And he knew exactly how Brian felt.

After the bashing, when he was out of the hospital and back living with Brian, Justin had still felt like his life was spiraling out of control. There was no fixing this, and Justin didn’t know how to deal with that. And a lot of that came out in angry, out of control fits of rage. His hand got better every day, but it would never be 100%. He got more comfortable being in public with Brian’s help, but he knew that if the wrong situation presented itself, his post-traumatic stress would rear its ugly head and he’d find himself having a flashback that led to a panic attack. He would never be the same person he was before, even though his brain injury hadn’t affected his personality at all. He couldn’t be the same person. Just like Brian couldn’t possibly be the same person now that he was a year ago, even if desperately he wanted to be.

For years, every time something came up related to what happened on prom night, Brian would tell Justin to “try not to think about it.” That strategy worked until it didn’t. Until the pent up frustration ignited the hatred and fury that led him to join Cody’s band of queer vigilantes, which quickly became just he and Cody against the straight world. He finally dealt with his feelings about what had happened to him the night he stuck a gun in Chris Hobbs’ mouth and nearly pulled the trigger. When he forced the man -- no, the monster -- to apologize for causing him brain damage and permanent injury. For giving him nightmares every night for two years. For filling him with fear every time he walked out the door. For treating him like a subhuman who didn’t deserve to live. He’d gotten his revenge by showing Chris Hobbs what it felt like to fear for your life. And it allowed him to finally let go of the resentment and the fear he’d been holding inside for two years.

Justin knew Brian was just as filled with resentment and fear now as Justin had been back then. And he also knew that getting Brian to admit to any of it was going to be a tall order. But he had to if he was ever going to deal with those emotions and be able to move on.

So as they went to sleep that night, Justin was relieved that Brian had agreed to talk to someone who could help him. And he was prouder of Brian than he ever had been in the six years they’d known each other, because he knew Brian well enough to know just how hard that had been for him to do. Asking for help simply wasn’t in Brian Kinney’s vocabulary. Neither was talking about his feelings.

Justin was reminded of when Brian had cancer, and had lied to him from the start. Telling him that he was going to Ibiza for a vacation rather than to Johns Hopkins to have a testicle removed. Pretending that everything was okay, when it obviously wasn’t. And Justin being too afraid to let on that he knew -- that he’d overheard the doctor leaving a message on Brian’s answering machine. When Brian found out that Justin knew, he threw him out -- because Brian Kinney was too proud, too strong of a man, to accept help from anyone. To admit weakness. He wanted to handle it on his own. Whatever happened to what he had told Justin years ago: A man needs to know when to ask for help?

Back then, Justin had to force Brian to accept help, by showing up at the loft and refusing to leave. Forcing Brian to let him in. To let him help. To let him show his love the way that you do when someone you care about is in need. Getting Brian to accept love was a challenge on a good day, and even more difficult when he was already feeling exposed. Vulnerable.

Justin didn’t have a good, solid reference in the Kinney Operating Manual for the situation they found themselves in now. He just hoped he could blindly feel his way through it, so he could help Brian. And hope that Brian would keep up his end of the bargain, and let him. That he hadn’t changed his mind at some point in the middle of the night, and decided to continue trying to muddle through this mess alone, leaving Justin behind him to try to pick up the pieces.

Justin awoke to Brian groaning next to him in bed as he rolled over and covered his eyes with his forearm, muttering something about turning off the sun.

“Morning,” Justin said softly, sure that Brian probably had a terrible headache after drinking what appeared to be half a bottle of Jim Beam in the span of several hours. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit. God, why did I do that?” Brian moaned, flipping himself back over onto his stomach and burying his face in the pillow. Now that Brian’s right side was facing Justin, he could see a large bruise spreading across the older man’s hip. Justin reached his hand out to hesitantly touch it.

“Can you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“Guess not.”

Brian craned his neck to look down toward where Justin’s fingers lay on his hip. “Christ,” he said.

“I hope you didn’t break anything.”

“Does it matter?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“Not like I’m ever going to walk again.”

“You don’t know that. They’re working on experimental treatments all the time.”

“Justin Taylor, the eternal optimist.” Brian turned his face back toward the pillow and sighed as he released his head back down.

“People don’t call me sunshine for nothing.” Justin ran his hand up Brian’s back, his fingers lightly tracing the scar over his spine.

“And here I thought it was just your smile,” Brian said into the pillow.

“Brian Kinney, the eternal pessimist.”

“I prefer realist. What time is it?”

“Almost nine.”

“Fuck!” Brian quickly pushed himself back over onto his side and up into a sitting position, throwing the covers back. “I’m supposed to be on a call right now.”

“No, you’re not,” Justin said, his eyes scanning down Brian’s legs, where he saw more bruises on his knees. “I called Ted last night while you were in the shower.”

“Great,” Brian groused. “What did you tell him?”

“That you weren’t feeling well and probably should take tomorrow off, but that you’d never admit that yourself, so I was making the decision for you. He sounded worried. Said you’d called him earlier and told him you were going to take a nap.”

“What else did he say?”

“That he hopes you feel better soon.”

Brian snorted. “Not likely. Unless you have a cure for this,” Brian stopped and slapped his thigh with his right hand, “then I think it’s going to be a long time until I feel better.”

“Brian--”

“Sunshine, stop.” Brian pulled his pillow out from behind him and propped it up on the headboard, then leaned back against it. “I know.”

“What?”

“That I can’t keep trying to do this on my own. Clearly, I’ve been doing a bang-up job. I proved that last night.”

Justin propped his own pillow up next to Brian’s and leaned into his lover’s shoulder, wrapping an arm around him. “It’s okay to not be okay, you know. That doesn’t make you weak.”

“Christ, you sound like Rebecca, that therapist they made me talk to in rehab. Or, she talked to me, at least. I didn’t talk much to her.”

“Why not?”

Brian shrugged. “Didn’t want to. I didn’t see how it was going to help.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. But I can’t keep doing to you what I did last night.”

“I don’t give a fuck about me. Do whatever you want to me; I’ll deal with it. I care about you. I don’t know what that was last night, but you can’t keep doing that to yourself.”

“I know,” Brian sighed. “Believe me, I know. I just don’t know where to start.”

“Maybe call Rebecca? See if she has any connections here in New York?”

“I’m sure she’ll be incredibly impressed at what a fuck up I’ve managed to become.”

“Hey, don’t talk about my boyfriend like that.” Justin kissed Brian on the cheek. “This shit’s hard. I’m sure she knows that. No one said it was going to be easy. But I think it’ll be a lot easier if you don’t keep trying to go it alone.”

It turned out that Rebecca did have some connections in New York, and referred Brian to one of her former grad school classmates who had set up a private practice in the city. Justin was thankful that Brian was able get an appointment fairly quickly. He was afraid Brian would downplay what had happened when he talked to Rebecca, but he hadn’t. He’d told her the whole story. Every detail. And Justin couldn’t help but hearing the slight edge in Brian’s voice -- fear, mixed with shame -- as he recounted the tale. But it was clear that Brian felt more comfortable talking with her than he had let on. That was a good thing. Progress.

A few days later, Justin was working on a painting when Brian came into their shared studio/office space after his first appointment. Justin’s eyes landed on a small bag from the pharmacy on Brian’s lap.

“Better living through chemistry,” he said, going up to Justin and grabbing his arms to pull him down for a kiss.

“How was it?” Justin asked, not sure if Brian would be willing to talk about it, but he wanted to try. Brian’s mood already seemed a little better than it had been that morning. Less heavy. Like some of the weight had been lifted.

Brian went over to his desk, set the bag down, and turned on his computer. “So, this is kind of like when I had cancer,” he said. “Only it’s not.”

Justin put his brushes into a cup of water and wiped his hands on a paint-splotched rag before pulling his own desk chair over to where Brian was. He threw one leg over it and straddled it, sitting backward, his arms folded across the top of the chair. “Okay,” he said. “What does that mean?”

Taking a deep breath, Brian turned slightly so that he and Justin were facing each other, resting his forearm on the desk. “When I had cancer, I felt imperfect...damaged. Defective. Diseased. All things I never wanted to feel or be. I’d spent my entire adult life trying to be the best at everything...always. I wanted people to see me as perfect. Beautiful. Young.”

Justin scooted his chair a bit closer and put a hand over Brian’s.

“Then I got cancer,” Brian continued, “and I had to face not being perfect. Only I didn’t face it...not really. I tried to keep it hidden because it made me feel weak. And even after you and Michael and Ted and Debbie knew, it was still private. Something people didn’t know about when they saw me. And I recovered...fully. Fake ball and all.”

“Then this happened,” Justin said.

“Right. And it’s the same, only different. I’m back to being imperfect. Defective. But this time I can’t hide it. It’s the first thing people see. And it’s not going to get better. I’m never going to recover.”

“Yes, you will. It’s just different.” Justin rubbed his thumb over Brian’s hand. “Recovering doesn’t have to mean going back to being exactly the same as you were before. Maybe recovering for you now means becoming the best version of yourself you can possibly be.”

“I don’t know what that would be, though.”

“You’ll figure it out. I know you will.”

The next week, Brian came home talking about ghosts. The ghost of his past self, coming back to haunt him.

“Wherever you go, there you are?” Justin said as they sat together at the dining room table, digging into a simple meal of chicken and vegetables.

“Something like that. I knew I couldn’t get away from it in Pittsburgh, because so many people know me. The curse of always trying to be the best at everything -- too many people recognize you.”

“That’s part of who you are though, isn’t it? Brian Kinney, the best ad man in the Pitts, the stud of Liberty Avenue.”

“Who I was,” Brian corrected him as he sipped his water. “I can’t be that man anymore. I don’t want people to recognize me.”

“Why not?”

“Good question. I don’t know. I don’t like it anymore. When people recognize me now, it’s not because they’re thinking I’m the best at something, or because they’re impressed, or they’re jealous of me. It’s because they see I’m different.”

“You don’t know that. You’re not inside their heads.”

“No, but I can see their faces.”

“Through your own lens, though. The one that sees yourself as broken.”

Brian was quiet for a few seconds, pushing broccoli around on his plate. “Anyway, I thought I was getting away from the ghosts by coming here. But they followed me. I guess because they’re really inside my own head.”

“So how do you get rid of them?”

“Hell if I know. It might take awhile.”

“That’s okay,” Justin said as he got up and moved his chair over by Brian’s, before leaning in to give him a hug and a kiss. “I’ll be here. I’ll help you. If you’ll let me.”

Brian returned the kiss, and Justin knew that it was Brian’s way of saying, “Thank you. I love you. I appreciate you.” Brian Kinney still didn’t talk much about his feelings, but he had his own ways of making them known, and Justin was grateful that he could now see those ways for what they were. He’d made the mistake before of trying to take Brian at face value, expecting him to verbalize everything, and it wasn’t a mistake he was willing to repeat. Even if Brian rarely spoke the words I love you, thank you, I appreciate you, he said them a million times over through his actions. You just had to be willing to see it.

Justin wasn’t expecting or even wanting Brian to become an expert at expressing his emotions in words; that wouldn’t have been Brian. That wasn’t the man he fell in love with. But he did hope that Brian would be able to find peace. To feel strong again. To free himself from the ghosts that were haunting him, holding him hostage, and not allowing him to move on with his life. Already, their grip didn’t seem to be as strong. Brian was starting to smile a little more. He seemed more relaxed. And less like he was hiding something dark that he didn’t want anyone else to know about.

All actions have an equal and opposite reaction. A repercussion. Changing one thing creates a domino effect that changes everything that happens afterward. And even if you feel like you’d be changing something for the better -- to avoid pain and hurt and tragedy -- you’d still have to give up everything good that happened afterward, in exchange for changing that one thing.

So while Justin often wished that he could somehow make Brian’s accident not happen, he also had to recognize how the dominos had fallen. How this event that had completely upended Brian’s life had also reunited them. Their renewed commitment to one another was a reverberation that had come from something terrible, just as the bashing, cancer, and the bombing had brought them closer together after threatening to push them apart. Where would they be now, had June 21st of last year played out differently? No one knows for sure. But it doesn’t matter, because it did happen, and there was no turning back now. Things would be different now for both of them -- there was no getting around that -- but different wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. And Justin hoped that Brian was as grateful as he was to have the opportunity to navigate the rest of the journey -- challenging as it would be -- hand in hand.

After all, sometimes a man’s got to know when to ask for help.